


Swept Away

by ahollyandivy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 00:09:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7336750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahollyandivy/pseuds/ahollyandivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is never clear when a story begins.</p><p>For Dojh167's Percy/Oliver Challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swept Away

It is never clear when stories begin. 

 

Eric Brocklehurst thought that their story started in fifth year, when Oliver had been frantically pacing the dormitory the night before the first Quidditch match of the season, and Percy told him that he should go to bed, because his pacing was distracting Percy from his History of Magic essay and everyone knew that Oliver was a fabulous captain and Gryffindor were obviously going to win. Oliver had taken Percy’s advice and gone to bed, Percy had finished his essay, and Gryffindor had won their match against Slytherin. 

 

If you asked Jessica Ackley, she would tell you that their story started with their argument in the Gryffindor common room halfway through sixth year. Oliver had been listening to the Puddlemere United versus Holyhead Harpies match on the wireless, and arguing with Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnston about which team was better, right beside the table where Percy had been trying to do his NEWT Arithmancy coursework. After nearly two hours of struggling to concentrate, Percy had turned around and asked Oliver whether he ever thought about anyone other than himself, because some people were actually trying to work. The heated exchange which followed had drawn the eyes of everyone in the common room, but had ended with Percy stiffening, apologising, then turning around, hastily gathering his books and disappearing up the stairs to the boys’ dormitories.

 

According to Penelope Clearwater, their story started in seventh year. Penelope said that the reason she had split up with Percy was less to do with the fact Percy wouldn’t stop talking about Oliver and more to do with the fact that she realised she was bisexual and had a crush on the seventh year Hufflepuff prefect Rachel Nott. However, she also said, usually with a laugh and her arm round her girlfriend’s waist, that the fact Percy wouldn’t stop talking about Oliver was definitely a factor in their break up, two days before the first Quidditch match of the year. 

 

Rachel Nott didn’t realise when she ended up being partners for a NEWT Astronomy project with her girlfriend’s ex (though she had worked alongside Percy as a prefect for more than two years, and referred to him that way only when she was telling this story) that it would be her that he ended up pouring out his fears to. There isn’t, Rachel had told Percy, a better time to question your sexuality than at midnight on the top of the Astronomy tower. That was what Percy had ended up doing. Rachel had promised to keep his secret, and while they mapped the skies they talked about sexuality and gender. Rachel claimed that Percy and Oliver’s story started when Percy came out to her as pansexual, because before then Percy wouldn’t have admitted to himself that Oliver and him were even a possibility. 

 

It was not until after the war – when a photo in the gossip column of the Daily Prophet of Percy and Oliver talking at a Ministry function, heads close together, Oliver’s hand on Percy’s arm – that their friends knew that their story would be a story that would be told. A story that they would need to sit in the Leaky Cauldron and argue over when it actually began. When, three years later, their names appeared in the ‘Marriages’ section of the Daily Prophet (prompting at least a three dozen angry letters to the editor, proving that blood status was not the only prejudice the wizarding world was guilty of) their friends had still not decided between them which event was the beginning to Percy and Oliver’s story.

 

Both Percy and Oliver know that stories do not have clear beginnings. Oliver will admit that he liked Percy since third year, Percy will confess – his freckles almost hidden by an embarrassed blush – to realising it in sixth year. Both of them can count a thousand moments, a thousand tiny sparks, between them before the moment both, in their own way, mark as the beginning of their story. All of those moments mean something, but none mean quite as much as the moment Percy proved his worth as a courageous Gryffindor and leaned forward to kiss Oliver. 

 

It is never clear when stories begin. Beginnings do not announce themselves with a bang but creep in slowly, so the story has started before you realise, and you are already being swept away.

 

Percy and Oliver didn’t know, when they ended up sitting in the same compartment of the Hogwarts Express on their first day of Hogwarts that they would be sorted into the same house. They didn’t know that they would share a dormitory. They didn’t know how much they would argue. They didn’t know that they would share a kiss. They didn’t know that they would fall in love. They didn’t know how much pain losing each other would cause. They didn’t know how much happiness finding each other again would bring. They didn’t know that they would live happily ever after – or at least closer to it than either ever dreamt they would be.

 

They were swept away.


End file.
